I find from past experience that people who feel the need to shout to make their point (especially in caps over the internet) invariably have nothing worth listening to.
AC has a point, albeit somewhat crudely worded. You need a trigger to start the critical mass rolling. We might still have racial segregation today if Rosa Parks obediently gave up her seat when ordered to do so. Mahatma Gandhi did not have that critical mass when he started his Salt March, the march inspired many other to join him and later turned into civil rebellion.
Of course its easier to say it can't be done, sit back and complain over the internet =)
And the DOJ did not assert the EFF was on a "fishing expedition"; it argued that it misunderstood the scope of discovery, and would not have destroyed the information in question if it did (which seems highly improbable given the circumstances).
That is an unbelievably stupid argument by the DOJ. It's common sense that when the court orders you to preserve documents, you hold on to any documents which may remotely be affected at all. This is a clear cut case of contempt of court and ought to be prosecuted as such.
The DOJ is setting a fine example for all other law abiding citizens out there. I expect to see more "I misunderstood the scope of discovery" excuses in forthcoming civil and criminal cases.
We are talking about a terrorism trial... There are more than only the defendants at stake.
Invalid passport, copy of a booklet or even possession of illegal weapon are insufficient to prove that someone is a terrorist. There probably need some witnesses....
And, pray tell, how do you know the accused are terrorists? That the government has clear evidence that they are terrorists? Or that there are any credible witnesses at all?
You don't. In truth, you don't know anything at all. Because the whole proceedings are secret and hidden from you.
The government could drag you before the same secret court tomorrow, and none would be wiser. Think about it before you so enthusiastically throw away your rights. Secret trials because of "terrorism" can be used to hide many sins and subvert inconvenient rights.
Americans don't have secret courts. Secret evidence sometimes, secret charges rarely, but never anything like this. UK is the vanguard of the Orwellian State.
Because of the sensitive nature of its business, the court is a "secret court" – its hearings are closed to the public. While records of the proceedings are kept, they also are unavailable to the public, although copies of some records with classified information redacted have been made public. Due to the classified nature of its proceedings, usually only government attorneys are permitted to appear before the court. Because of the nature of the matters heard before it, court hearings may need to take place at any time of day or night, weekdays or weekends; thus, at least one judge must be "on call" at all times to hear evidence and decide whether or not to issue a warrant.
If the public has no idea what is going on in the FISC, then yes, it is a secret court.
If Google is all about doing no evil and playing nice, why wouldn't they delete the information?
Actually, making truthful information readily accessible to the public is a public good. At the expense of the particular individual under scrutiny perhaps, but broadly speaking it is a public good.
A scam artist would love to hide evidence of his past scams. OTOH his past victims/potential victims would probably insist the information be broadcasted far and wide. A paedophile would love to hide the fact that he abused children from his new neighbours. His new neighbours however would probably be very upset at being kept in the dark. And I sure wouldn't like it if the person applying to be a school bus driver was able to hide the fact that he drinks heavily on the job and lost his previous job because of it.
In all these cases, I think it is appropriate that the individual's fear of social stigma be sacrificed when weighed against the potential harm that could be caused to innocent parties if the truth was obscured.
Otherwise history is going to look very different in the near future. Holocaust? Sorry, no records available. Khmer Rouge? Never happened.
You do realize that those events are documented by first hand accounts and historians right? How is being erased from Google's databases close to erasing the memories of witnesses or even the ability of historians to publish books? Not even close sorry.
As far as the internet is concerned, if you don't appear on Google, you don't exist. Practically speaking, a lot of people doing research today start with a quick google search. If they don't get any results, they are likely to assume the subject doesn't exist/never happened.
My point is, if this information is freely available on the web, it is much harder to deny the truth. Make this information disappear, and it is much easier to brainwash the public into believing it is a lie.
And that is the crux of the problem. If you want to prosecute someone for sports bribery, then do so as sports bribery. Don't try to twist copyright infringement to cover odd scenarios it was never meant or intended to deal with.
Twist it too far, and it will cover everything and there goes your precious fair use.
Your argument is basically that the ends justifies the means. They're stopping cheaters who are evil therefore its ok even if what they're doing is an abuse of copyright protection.
The problem is its a slippery slope- they may be going after cheaters today, but tomorrow they can use the same legal precedent they set for themselves (with your enthusiastic support) to go after others who use their software in a way they don't approve of.
Such as going after modders. Addon makers. Data miners. Manufacturers of macroable mice, keyboards etc.
You may think, oh Blizzard will never do that. My answer is it is never a good idea to put yourself at the mercy of their corporate policy. After all, not that long ago, they introduced RMAH to D3 despite objections from their playerbase.
You can't sue your employer for firing you if they can show just cause... (eg, caught stealing something from the company).
You must first dispute their alleged cause... and only if you win are you then able to sue them for firing you for said cause.
In most jurisdictions in the world, you can file lawsuits against anyone for anything. Whether or not the suit will be dismissed or rejected by the court after being filed is a different matter.
The memory in your computer belongs to you. If Blizzard's game writes troop positions into your computer's memory, reading those positions is your right as the owner of this equipment --- after all, it's a pattern of bits in memory owned by you. No company can disallow you access to the equipment that you own. They don't own it, you do.
Not true. Let me illustrate this with another analogy.
This gun you bought legally belongs to you. Firing your gun is your right as the owner of this equipment --- after all, the gun is owned by you. No one can disallow you the use of equipment that you own. They don't own it, you do. To test that belief, bring that gun to the nearest supermarket, fire it and see what happens.
My point is that ownership rights are, unfortunately, not absolute. For example, note the DMCA restrictions and how they affect products that belong to you.
Forgive me for trying to boil this down into more simplistic terms to understand the concept:-
So what you're saying is that just because 2 different drivers drove from Town 1 to Town 2 (similar results), it does not necessarily mean that they took the same route. Driver A had to buy groceries, pick up his daughter, visit the video store so he drove a certain route. Driver B had to top up his gas, return a library book and buy dinner so he took a different route (evolutionary pressures). But both of them ended up in Town 2.
I have to say as a complete layman that I find this whole discussion fascinating. I had no idea there was such a wide variety of eyes in this world.
Which makes me wonder though why we haven't actually been seeing any/many inventions making use of these principles to augment our own vision. For example, I can see that a physical analog for the goat's vision may have some application in the field of law enforcement, or vehicle HUDs or anything for that matter where a larger field of vision would be an advantage.
So, their solution to a badly drafted, overly broad and ridiculously vague piece of legislation is... more legislation? And further, each state wants to introduce its own flavour of law into the picture?
What a nightmare. Instead of having to deal with one bad piece of federal legislation, you now have 1 federal and potentially 50 state laws to worry about. The only ones rubbing their hands in glee are patent lawyers.
One of the main sticking points for members so far has been a proposal to make it easier for the losing party in a meritless patent lawsuit to pay the winner’s court fees.
6092 patent lawsuits were filed in 2013, a 12.4% increase over 2012. Of the top ten filers of patent lawsuits in 2013, every single one was a patent troll. The most litigious patent owner was notorious troll ArrivalStar, which filed 137 lawsuits. Patent cases clustered in a handful of federal district courts, with 1495 filed in the Eastern District of Texas and 1336 in the District of Delaware (including 900 before a single Eastern District of Texas judge).
OTOH if you produce a great game but spend minimally on marketing, it can still succeed through word of mouth, etc. Case in point- Minecraft.
On January 12, 2011, Minecraft passed 1 million purchases, less than a month after entering its beta phase. At the same time, the game had no publisher backing and has never been commercially advertised except through word of mouth, and various unpaid references in popular media such as the Penny Arcade webcomic.
I rather doubt that any game falling into the category of "greatest game ever" or even a great game will fail without paid marketing so long as its accessible to players. Gamers tend to be quite vocal in sharing about games they're in love with.
skeuomorphism is dumb because design elements intended for, say, "sorting" a book by putting your finger in the right notch should never be used in an app.
You mean like the use of tabs and separators in diaries?
Oddly enough, as I am reading this I look at the top of my browser and -lo and behold- I see tabs. Which work very well in flipping between the various web pages I have open.
1) If your ISP advertises X Mbps, and the ISP makes a deal with Netflix to put in a separate exclusive pipe that provides enough total bandwidth to keep up with demand, and you still get X Mbps to everything else, then I don't know that I have a problem with it.
You subscribe and pay to both your ISP and Netflix. You've therefore already paid your ISP to carry your bits from Netflix. Your ISP makes a deal with Netflix, and they get money from Netflix. Netflix raises its prices to pay your ISP. You pay more to Netflix.
I am convinced that the price per channel would go up if everyone was able to purchase channels a la carte. It costs $X to produce all the content, and they need to charge each customer more than $Y (where y = x / number of customers) on average in order to make a profit.
Likely so, but even then the cost of paying for just that one channel that you do want to watch will likely be substantially lower than the package that you now pay for which includes all the other crap channels you do not want to watch.
Imagine if there's this shirt that you want to buy, but its only sold in a package for $200 with 4 other shirts sized XXXL which you will never wear. Does it even make sense to buy the bundle?
The channels you want would have to be much, much more highly priced than you think in an a la carte system.
Higher than what the content providers get from the cable providers, but still less than what you pay for the cable package. Which seems like a pretty decent deal.
What is surprising is that the WWE’s new channel isn’t coming to cable. The company has announced that it’s developing a new round-the-clock streaming network that will be available on smartphones, tablets and Internet-ready devices like Roku boxes and video game consoles. The new channel will offer all of the league’s pay-per-view specials live, along with original programming, archival footage of classic matches and pre- and postgame shows for Raw and Smackdown. In total there will be 1,500 hours of video on demand at launch. The channel will cost $9.99 per month and debuts on Feb. 24.
And yes, its rolling out for prices that their fans would jump for. $9.99 is well within OP's budget of $20.
You all clamored for a tightly-corperate-coupled government to control the internet.
Then it happened, the FCC decided it could do what it wanted.So now instead of back-end interconnects being negotiated between an ISP and a content provider as had been the case, the government by fiat has declared the "winner" - the ISP.
Don't be obtuse. The government should have, but failed to, control the internet. That is why the ISPs are charging you and arm and a leg. One example- the FCC wanted net neutrality, which by all accounts most consumers want. The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia and the ISPs however killed the idea:-
Any semblance of net neutrality in the United States is as good as dead. The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia on Tuesday struck down the Federal Communications Commission’s 2010 order that imposed network neutrality regulations on wireline broadband services. The ruling is a major victory for telecom and cable companies who have fought all net neutrality restrictions vociferously for years.
You are doing the ISPs work for them. Every time one of you should "less gov'mt" and burn flags, they rub their hands in glee. Less government = more freedom in them deciding how to skin you.
Get the government to run dark fiber to the nearest datacenter and charge all local ISPs "fair market value" for access to that link...
Stop right there. You know that will never happen because their lobbyists be will hard at work making sure that your elected representatives will kill any such plan in birth. Probably on the grounds of "less government", "capitalism" and "free competition".
Say I told Comcast to fuck off. They'd cut me off. Sure, short-term revenues would go down because I lost all those customers. Long-term, though, I would win because those customers would not remain silent. I would let everyone know that I am quite willing to give them access, but it is their cable company that is blocking the service. Cut off from a service they want by an ill-behaving monopoly, they would kick up a fuss and - doubtless unwillingly - the politicos would have to regulate properly or they would lose their seats.
I'm sorry, I don't have your faith in "the people".
Home broadband in the US costs far more than elsewhere. At high speeds, it costs nearly three times as much as in the UK and France, and more than five times as much as in South Korea.
I don't see this rising tide of angry consumers you speak of. Most of them will shrug their shoulders and keep on paying. With Netflix cut off, they will just switch to cable.
Netflix does offer something similar to ISPs so they don't need to route all that traffic over the backbones, but since Netflix charges a fee to maintain the cache system, ISPs don't want it.
Untrue. The CDNs are provided by Netflix for free.
ISPs can directly connect their networks to Open Connect for free. ISPs can do this either by free peering with us at common Internet exchanges, or can save even more transit costs by putting our free storage appliances in or near their network.
The ISPs are refusing because many of them also operate cable companies/online services *cough*Hulu*cough* that compete with Netflix.
Common sense dictates that *if* you value your money in the slightest, you alone have access and control. Short of this, you've lost the battle before it has begun.
Do you use bank services? Credit cards? Money transfer services? Paypal? Square? Bitcoins?
Ok maybe your argument is that data and money is not the same. Lets restrict the argument to data alone. A policeman asks you for your driving licence. Your bank asks you for your transaction number. The online vendor you are trying to buy goods from asks for your credit card number. Are you going to refuse?
It is not remotely possible to make sure that "you alone have access and control" to your own data. At some point, you will have to share it with someone else, and therefore run the risk it may be exposed.
Slashdot Mirror
I find from past experience that people who feel the need to shout to make their point (especially in caps over the internet) invariably have nothing worth listening to.
AC has a point, albeit somewhat crudely worded. You need a trigger to start the critical mass rolling. We might still have racial segregation today if Rosa Parks obediently gave up her seat when ordered to do so. Mahatma Gandhi did not have that critical mass when he started his Salt March, the march inspired many other to join him and later turned into civil rebellion.
Of course its easier to say it can't be done, sit back and complain over the internet =)
That is an unbelievably stupid argument by the DOJ. It's common sense that when the court orders you to preserve documents, you hold on to any documents which may remotely be affected at all. This is a clear cut case of contempt of court and ought to be prosecuted as such.
The DOJ is setting a fine example for all other law abiding citizens out there. I expect to see more "I misunderstood the scope of discovery" excuses in forthcoming civil and criminal cases.
Spoken by an Anonymous Coward.
And, pray tell, how do you know the accused are terrorists? That the government has clear evidence that they are terrorists? Or that there are any credible witnesses at all?
You don't. In truth, you don't know anything at all. Because the whole proceedings are secret and hidden from you.
The government could drag you before the same secret court tomorrow, and none would be wiser. Think about it before you so enthusiastically throw away your rights. Secret trials because of "terrorism" can be used to hide many sins and subvert inconvenient rights.
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court begs to differ.
If the public has no idea what is going on in the FISC, then yes, it is a secret court.
If Google is all about doing no evil and playing nice, why wouldn't they delete the information?
Actually, making truthful information readily accessible to the public is a public good. At the expense of the particular individual under scrutiny perhaps, but broadly speaking it is a public good.
A scam artist would love to hide evidence of his past scams. OTOH his past victims/potential victims would probably insist the information be broadcasted far and wide.
A paedophile would love to hide the fact that he abused children from his new neighbours. His new neighbours however would probably be very upset at being kept in the dark.
And I sure wouldn't like it if the person applying to be a school bus driver was able to hide the fact that he drinks heavily on the job and lost his previous job because of it.
In all these cases, I think it is appropriate that the individual's fear of social stigma be sacrificed when weighed against the potential harm that could be caused to innocent parties if the truth was obscured.
As far as the internet is concerned, if you don't appear on Google, you don't exist. Practically speaking, a lot of people doing research today start with a quick google search. If they don't get any results, they are likely to assume the subject doesn't exist/never happened.
As for your point about historical records, accounts etc, the same are often accused of being fabricated/simply ignored. For example, even today there are many who deny that the Holocaust ever happened. Similarly, until today the government of Japan still denies that the Nanking Massacre occurred.
My point is, if this information is freely available on the web, it is much harder to deny the truth. Make this information disappear, and it is much easier to brainwash the public into believing it is a lie.
This brainwashing process has already begun.
And that is the crux of the problem. If you want to prosecute someone for sports bribery, then do so as sports bribery. Don't try to twist copyright infringement to cover odd scenarios it was never meant or intended to deal with.
Twist it too far, and it will cover everything and there goes your precious fair use.
Your argument is basically that the ends justifies the means. They're stopping cheaters who are evil therefore its ok even if what they're doing is an abuse of copyright protection.
The problem is its a slippery slope- they may be going after cheaters today, but tomorrow they can use the same legal precedent they set for themselves (with your enthusiastic support) to go after others who use their software in a way they don't approve of.
Such as going after modders.
Addon makers.
Data miners.
Manufacturers of macroable mice, keyboards etc.
You may think, oh Blizzard will never do that. My answer is it is never a good idea to put yourself at the mercy of their corporate policy. After all, not that long ago, they introduced RMAH to D3 despite objections from their playerbase.
You can't sue your employer for firing you if they can show just cause...
(eg, caught stealing something from the company).
You must first dispute their alleged cause... and only if you win are you then able to sue them for firing you for said cause.
In most jurisdictions in the world, you can file lawsuits against anyone for anything. Whether or not the suit will be dismissed or rejected by the court after being filed is a different matter.
The memory in your computer belongs to you. If Blizzard's game writes troop positions into your computer's memory, reading those positions is your right as the owner of this equipment --- after all, it's a pattern of bits in memory owned by you. No company can disallow you access to the equipment that you own. They don't own it, you do.
Not true. Let me illustrate this with another analogy.
This gun you bought legally belongs to you. Firing your gun is your right as the owner of this equipment --- after all, the gun is owned by you. No one can disallow you the use of equipment that you own. They don't own it, you do.
To test that belief, bring that gun to the nearest supermarket, fire it and see what happens.
My point is that ownership rights are, unfortunately, not absolute. For example, note the DMCA restrictions and how they affect products that belong to you.
Forgive me for trying to boil this down into more simplistic terms to understand the concept:-
So what you're saying is that just because 2 different drivers drove from Town 1 to Town 2 (similar results), it does not necessarily mean that they took the same route. Driver A had to buy groceries, pick up his daughter, visit the video store so he drove a certain route. Driver B had to top up his gas, return a library book and buy dinner so he took a different route (evolutionary pressures). But both of them ended up in Town 2.
Would this be a reasonably accurate metaphor?
I have to say as a complete layman that I find this whole discussion fascinating. I had no idea there was such a wide variety of eyes in this world.
Which makes me wonder though why we haven't actually been seeing any/many inventions making use of these principles to augment our own vision. For example, I can see that a physical analog for the goat's vision may have some application in the field of law enforcement, or vehicle HUDs or anything for that matter where a larger field of vision would be an advantage.
So, their solution to a badly drafted, overly broad and ridiculously vague piece of legislation is... more legislation? And further, each state wants to introduce its own flavour of law into the picture?
What a nightmare. Instead of having to deal with one bad piece of federal legislation, you now have 1 federal and potentially 50 state laws to worry about. The only ones rubbing their hands in glee are patent lawyers.
The only real solution is patent reform, and the stalling members of the Senate ought to lose their jobs.
*rolls eyes*
In the meantime, the rest of the country has to deal with the consequences.
It is however a strong indication of misplacement of priorities.
If you overspend on great marketing but produce a turd of a game, it will still fail. Case in point- E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (video game).
OTOH if you produce a great game but spend minimally on marketing, it can still succeed through word of mouth, etc. Case in point- Minecraft.
I rather doubt that any game falling into the category of "greatest game ever" or even a great game will fail without paid marketing so long as its accessible to players. Gamers tend to be quite vocal in sharing about games they're in love with.
skeuomorphism is dumb because design elements intended for, say, "sorting" a book by putting your finger in the right notch should never be used in an app.
You mean like the use of tabs and separators in diaries?
Oddly enough, as I am reading this I look at the top of my browser and -lo and behold- I see tabs. Which work very well in flipping between the various web pages I have open.
You subscribe and pay to both your ISP and Netflix. You've therefore already paid your ISP to carry your bits from Netflix.
Your ISP makes a deal with Netflix, and they get money from Netflix.
Netflix raises its prices to pay your ISP.
You pay more to Netflix.
Netflix raises its price by £1 in the UK, €1 in Europe and $1 in the US
Your ISP is getting more money from you indirectly through Netflix.
Likely so, but even then the cost of paying for just that one channel that you do want to watch will likely be substantially lower than the package that you now pay for which includes all the other crap channels you do not want to watch.
Imagine if there's this shirt that you want to buy, but its only sold in a package for $200 with 4 other shirts sized XXXL which you will never wear. Does it even make sense to buy the bundle?
Higher than what the content providers get from the cable providers, but still less than what you pay for the cable package. Which seems like a pretty decent deal.
Content providers like the WWE are already rolling out their own internet offerings. Other content providers are known to be considering the same.
And yes, its rolling out for prices that their fans would jump for. $9.99 is well within OP's budget of $20.
Don't be obtuse. The government should have, but failed to, control the internet. That is why the ISPs are charging you and arm and a leg. One example- the FCC wanted net neutrality, which by all accounts most consumers want. The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia and the ISPs however killed the idea :-
You are doing the ISPs work for them. Every time one of you should "less gov'mt" and burn flags, they rub their hands in glee. Less government = more freedom in them deciding how to skin you.
Also explain to me how is it that you can get cheaper broadband in countries even heavier regulated than the US .
Get the government to run dark fiber to the nearest datacenter and charge all local ISPs "fair market value" for access to that link...
Stop right there. You know that will never happen because their lobbyists be will hard at work making sure that your elected representatives will kill any such plan in birth. Probably on the grounds of "less government", "capitalism" and "free competition".
Lets have more realistic solutions, please.
I'm sorry, I don't have your faith in "the people".
Case in point- US consumers have been paying through their nose for broadband access for years.
I don't see this rising tide of angry consumers you speak of. Most of them will shrug their shoulders and keep on paying. With Netflix cut off, they will just switch to cable.
Untrue. The CDNs are provided by Netflix for free.
The ISPs are refusing because many of them also operate cable companies/online services *cough*Hulu*cough* that compete with Netflix.
Common sense dictates that *if* you value your money in the slightest, you alone have access and control. Short of this, you've lost the battle before it has begun.
Do you use bank services? Credit cards? Money transfer services? Paypal? Square? Bitcoins?
Ok maybe your argument is that data and money is not the same. Lets restrict the argument to data alone. A policeman asks you for your driving licence. Your bank asks you for your transaction number. The online vendor you are trying to buy goods from asks for your credit card number. Are you going to refuse?
It is not remotely possible to make sure that "you alone have access and control" to your own data. At some point, you will have to share it with someone else, and therefore run the risk it may be exposed.